barbiturates in the afternoon sun

he had white hair like a lion with crushing
hope scratched deep into his skin and he
raised up over six feet and four inches tall

he was born into natural regency owner of
unseen throne walker into rooms where hushed
talk greeted his roar

he was a king that day on his roof telling
all and sundry including wife to fuck right
off cos the pills were his to take

after the ambulance left with no sirens now
for who could siren this shit on a saturday
afternoon and who commits suicide

i’m going to eat all the fucking pills cos
i’ve had enough of this suffering shit and
this suffering shit never ends never fucking

so we got to talking and no i didn’t want
his pills and he could kill himself and what
the fuck were they like anyway give us one

or two or whatever and we talked and those
pills had an old buzz on them and we talked
and neither of us drank cos

we were anonymous alcoholics and we talked
about life and god and all the useless men
who talked about life and god and

they were useful then and the day got kind
of dreamy cos those pills and the talk got
that kind of dreamy shit talk talking what

i wasn’t tricking him and i was taking them
pills and he wanted them and wanted to keep
them cos you couldn’t just take his pills

fucking barbs are rubbish and how the fuck
could these kill you for you’d want to take
a fucking truckload of them

and that was it cos he fell asleep and i
left and i walked home and the birds were
singing and shit

we got through that day and that was all and
some do and some don’t and all the useless
men came in handy and there you go

 

Brendan McCormack is a writer/poet living in West Cork, Ireland. His first collection, Selling Heaven, was published in 2013 by Burning Apple Press, NJ, USA. He runs the annual Clonakilty Bloomsday.

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Vermont.